Thread: Fitting out my little shed

Hi Michael,

I like the way you put together your storage under the bench. That will last a long long time. I like making shed fittings in my shed. Not to the standard of a piece of furniture, just put together properly with the right joints. I admire a bench put together to the standard of a hepplewhite table but I don't need one.

Do you mostly work with your handtools?

Mick.

Originally Posted by yvan

Hi Michael,

I'm a lefty too. Which references did you look at for your tail vise.
I like its heft and the fact that it opens 18" or so away from the end of the bench, with more than one dog-hole on the moving arm, nifty!!!

Cheers Yvan

Hi Yvan, I can't remember which exactly, but at the time some back issues of Australian Woodworker and Australian Woodsmith had a few different tail vise designs that I took inspiration from. Those combined with some youtube videos gave me enough education on how a tail vise goes together and what the parts I needed to make were.
But they were all right-handed designs, so from that inspiration, I worked out and drew up my own plans (twice - the first time I drew half the parts for a right-hander's bench and had to redo). You can see the build of it here: My obligatory workbench build thread

The multiple dogholes are very handy, especially since I drilled them at half the distance compared to the dogholes in the benchtop (I think IanW gave me that advice - thank you, it has come in useful so many times). The extra opening length has come in handy supporting the 2.5m dining table I built last year and in clamping boards longer than the benchtop itself. If I ever build myself another bench, it will have another tail vise - they're too handy to do without.

Originally Posted by ARealBoy

Hi Michael,

I like the way you put together your storage under the bench. That will last a long long time. I like making shed fittings in my shed. Not to the standard of a piece of furniture, just put together properly with the right joints. I admire a bench put together to the standard of a hepplewhite table but I don't need one.

Do you mostly work with your handtools?

Mick.

Hi Mick, I tend to take the same view as you - I try and make the pieces for my own use well, but as long as they do their job with no issues, I'm not too fussed about a less than perfect joint or ding or mis-match of grain or finish. And if I can use their construction as a learning process for some new technique or skill, then even better.

I'm almost entirely a handtool user these days. The bandsaw and the lathe are the main powertools I like to use and want to use with any regularity (not that I can use my lathe at the moment - it, along with the drill press and bench grinder are in storage in Sth Gippy, and I'm in lockdown in Melbourne). I enjoy the handtools more, plus they're cheaper (generally), plus I feel more comfortable using them with my daughters in the shed at the same time and more comfortable with them using them.

I have a small aldi tablesaw which is taking up room in the shed, and I haven't used it or wanted to use it for anything I have done in either making the shed or fitting it out. I honestly can't think of anything to do with it that I can't already do with handtools, bandsaw, drop saw (I have a small 10y.o. ozito that built the shed for me) or a circular saw, so I think I might get rid of it (give away or chuck out) sooner rather than later. It's just wasting space I can't afford.

Originally Posted by A Duke

Hi,
So seeing is believing?
Well after 50 years as an electrician, before retiring 15 years ago, I can say I have seen it.
Conductors need cooling air circulating around them, the wiring regulations down rate bunched cables and those running through insulation. Also you can get some induction effects from it being coiled.
Some free advice, take it or leave it, without having to experience it for yourselves.
Regard

Absolutely seeing is believing. I highly doubt you believe even half of what you hear, especially at your age. A well known quote by Abraham Lincoln: Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

On a serious side... I have a good enough understanding of extension cords, wire guage, length, resistance, and amperage to know not to over load them... I could run a 3/8" drill for 5 years none stop with a coiled up extension cord and know it won't even get warm, unless it's sitting on asphalt on a hot summer day... I also know that if I try to use a $5 20m woolies extension cord to power a 10" saw ripping full depth gumwood beams for 8 hours a day that I am going to have a problem. But eh! that's just me.

So ya, sometimes I take the advice, sometimes I don't, free or not. In this case I think I have it covered. YMMV

Hi Michael. I followed your link to your bench build. Thanks for taking the time to document and share your journey. Not only educational but also inspirational

With no more ring of steel, I was able to visit my parents down in Gippy for the first time in 6 months. And, pick up the rest of my tools that have been stored down there for the last 4 years. As a result, the shed's looking a bit disorganised again with stuff stacked every which-way until I can build shelves/cabinets etc...

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So now the drill press/belt sander stand has a place to go (on an old, bodgy swivel-top stand that I whacked together as a temporary solution 8 years ago, but since it hasn't fallen apart, temporary has become permanent) - although I might put the grinder on it in place of the sander, as it gets used a lot more often;

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And I finally have a lathe again! The DC is outside, but I haven't plumbed it through just yet. For the time being, the old tool racks have gone up on the wall, even though they got a bit of water damage in storage. But since they still work, they're sitting at about priority-206 for getting refurbished/replaced.

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My wife considers the shed to also be a garden shed, so to keep her happy, I've put together a tool corner for all the gardening stuff, behind the door.

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For the last few years, my tools have been stored in old metal trunks that my grandparents used when they travelled from India (where my grandfather was in the Indian Army and my grandmother in the Canadian Nursing Corps) at the end of WWII to Japan (as part of BCOF) and then to Australia. These trunks have been sitting rusting away in my parents' shed, to the extent that you couldn't tell if there was any writing on them - they were just dusty, rusty ugly boxes that, since my parents are about to downsize, were destined for the bin. So I cleaned off the grime and as much rust as I could, and then gave them a coat with polyurethane, as there is a fair amount of stuff still left on them that's readable.

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That's my grandmother's trunk on the left, from her voyage from India to Okayama in Japan on the SS Ranchi; and my grandfather's on the right.
What I'm doing with them is turning them into cabinets for my finishes, solvents etc... along the back wall of the shed.

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Here they are bolted in position and levelled off. Next, I need to put shelving inside them and between them, and put a benchtop on, connecting the two.

This is great to see Michael.

My previous two workshops have been so generous on size 8m*8m that when I think back to them they were packed full of machinery and stuff I didn't use. This workshop I built myself from scratch like you and is 6*4*2.6 and handtools only aside from small electric things ad I ran power to it

It's primarily hand tools so I'm enjoying the shavings only at the moment and using my space wisely so it fits my evolving workflow

I haven't however ruled out an expansion in future as I have an 6*4 vacant next to it was reserved for a garden shed but a like the idea of a large and bandsaw in there more

Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by delbs

T This workshop I built myself from scratch like you and is 6*4*2.6 and handtools only aside from small electric things ad I ran power to it

Hi delbs, your shed looks great! Much as I'd love to have another shed (mostly for wood storage), with available space on our block, I don't think it's going to happen.

Today I got the trunk cabinets finished. After putting a benchtop on to join them together, I put shelves in
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then made some space to move around in by filling them

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Then, a couple of shelves between the cabinets made from some miscellaneous bolts and the offcuts from making the shed floor,

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which gives me a place to put the powertools I'm keeping (although I don't know why I'm hanging onto the router - I haven't used it in over 6 years) and some of the specialty planes.

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Next job will be somewhere to store the bench planes - probably on the wall directly above this bench.

You have given me the idea I've needed to use this Army logistics case I've had for years that has just been sitting outside the shed not in use. At the same time wanting a new cabinet for my finished to be on the same wall as new tools.

What a great use of materials to make something functional.

The most recent magazine of Australian wood review speaks of shed spaces and how bigger shed spaces aren't always better.

I'm finding the more I build in mine such as small timber storage using recycled materials the more functional and unique to my needs it becomes.

This shed is a better space as it's taken two previous sheds to learn from

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Since my last post I've been pottering around, getting some tools off the floor/workbench and on to the walls, starting with the handplanes, with a plane till on the back wall over the new shelf/cabinets.

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The carcass is part of an old tool wall cabinet I screwed and glued together from plywood 9 years ago (the other half holds my lathe tools). In the storage years it lived through a flooding event and is a bit discoloured and warped in places, but my aim has been to minimise the amount of new material I need to buy in this fitout, so I ripped out the old tool-holding bits and put in some plane-holding bits instead mostly using some live-edge conifer pieces collected 8 years ago from the roadside. With a bit of a re-arrangement the W78 went in the bottom too, and only a boxed router plane and boxed 050 combination plane aren't in there. (and all the wooden planes, but they have their own spot on a shelf over the window).

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Then, between the saw till and plane till I hung my pliers and cutters. Then, just after I laid it out I inherited some more, so it now looks a bit crowded but still works as intended.

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And, having sold my little table saw, I put up some shelves on the side wall to take wood. There's about a trailer-load in the picture, mostly blackwood, sheoak, melaleuca and myrtle beach from my parent's place in Gippsland.

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It's coming together nicely - next up is a chisel cabinet to go next to the planes.

Originally Posted by The Spin Doctor

.... A well known quote by Abraham Lincoln: "Don't believe everything you read on the internet" ....

Poor research, Spin Doctor. Mark Twain definitely said that before Abraham Lincoln.

Hi Michael, Nice to see some Woden planes in your till. Do they follow the Stanley Bailey system with regards to sizing? How do they compare in terms of functionality? And a Swedish jointer. Good iron?

Hi Mountain Ash,
yes the Wodens are great planes - their sizing and numbering is the same as the Stanleys and have very good steel in the blades - easy to sharpen and hold an edge well. And the three of them together cost me less than $130 from Cash Converters over the years, which was another point in their favour. The double arms on the W78 are another plus - a definite improvement over the single arm of the Stanley.

I'd love to say the Anchor #7 has a great Swedish blade, but in reality it has a great English blade - it's a bit of a Frankenplane with an English Stanley iron inside it.